Continuing my "tour" of the TOS Enterprise, this morning I started tinkering with what I imagine to be the fairly crowded deck immediately below the Bridge.

And, yes, for those who seem to obsess about such things, this is where the Bridge crew's toilets would be!

An obvious advantage to the modeling is that I do not have to restrict myself to a single standing set representing all the corridors on the ship. I can -- and will -- be exploring previously unseen corridors, including, possibly, figuring out what the layout would "really" be like outside Engineering.

The Franz Jospeh plans, it should be noted, place Engineering at the rear of the Primary Hull, where all visual evidence* from the show indicates it would be, and NOT down in the Secondary Hull.)

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...the key words being "visual evidence from the show", since Matt Jefferies was quoted as saying that Engineering was "in the engineering section" (in other words, the secondary hull), and also approved of that location when Doug Drexler showed him the cutaway schematic of the ship that he'd made (which later ended up appearing in the Mirror episodes of ENTERPRISE).

I strongly suspect that the curved corridor outside of Engineering was simply a production compromise, if Jefferies did indeed originally intend Engineering to be in the secondary hull. All of the major Enterprise locations (except for the Bridge)--Briefing Room, Sickbay, Captain's Quarters, Transporter Room, etc. were accessible via one long, curved corridor set, which ran across the soundstage. There were only two small sections of straight corridor (one between the Transporter Room and the Briefing Room, and the other leading straight to Engineering, and intersecting with the main, curved corridor).

Of course, the real reason for the mystery of Engineering's location is that the impulse engines (which would surely need a central control room connected directly to the engines) are in the saucer, while the warp engines (which would surely need a central control room connected directly to the engines) are attached to the secondary hull. TOS, however, always depicted that one engine room as controlling EVERYTHING.

I occasionally like to think that the simpler engine room of the first season is the impulse engine room, located in the saucer, while the multi-level set introduced in the second season is the warp engine room, located in the secondary hull.

THE MOTION PICTURE literally connected both sets of engines in one location by introducing that horizontal (which directly fed the warp nacelles) and vertical (which siphoned off power to the impulse engines) intermix assembly, and placed Engineering in the secondary hull, where the two assemblies intersected. So, Andrew Probert was clearly trying to find a compromise!

In many ways it comes down to the old what we see/what we're told/what we know trifecta. From where I stand, in most cases, what we see pretty much trumps everything. We know, for instance, that the port side of the Enterprise model was covered with wiring that fed power to the light on the starboard side. That does not mean we should show those wires! We know that James Doohan was missing fingers from a WW2 injury, but care was taken to avoid showing Scotty has having absent digits, too.

Like I said, despite what we "know" (from unaired sources, which is itself important) is that Engineering was on the outer curve of a long corridor. Since it faced directly into a straight corridor, it would have been relatively simple to avoid showing the curve, but for "drama" this was not done. Which means we are shown that Engineering is in the Primary Hull. And in my heart and mind, that is where it will always be.

(It should be noted, too, that because of the established size of the Engineering section, it would be pretty much impossible to have really long corridors to the left and right if it was located in the Secondary Hull.)

In many ways it comes down to the old what we see/what we're told/what we know trifecta. From where I stand, in most cases, what we see pretty much trumps everything. We know, for instance, that the port side of the Enterprise model was covered with wiring that fed power to the light on the starboard side. That does not mean we show show those wires! We know that James Doohan was missing fingers from a WW2 injury, but care was taken to avoid showing Scotty has having absent digits, too.

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Of course.

And, of course, at the end of the day, these things only matter to obsessive, nitpicking nerds like us. When one just casually watches the show, one isn't supposed to stop and think about this stuff. And, in terms of stories and characters, the show still works just fine. That's the important part.

Especially so, considering that the show was made for 1960s NTSC TV, in an era before freeze-frame, endless reruns, and home video became the norm. It's a credit to the production team that they put as much thought into the show as they did, knowing that the episodes would likely only air a few times, and then maybe--MAYBE--go into syndication.

Heck, all Franz Joseph had to work with when making his plans were reruns, film clips from episodes, and still photos. There are a lot of inaccuracies in those plans, but I still love 'em to death, because they're a lot of fun, and help expand the illusion of the ship being "real".

STAR TREK was very much a series made up on the fly, in certain areas, and trying to reconcile inconsistencies and errors is both fun and maddening. Many fans try to retroactively apply elements from later series (such as technobabble) to TOS, or jump through mental hoops to resolve inconsistencies (like pretending that all those stock shots of the pilot Enterprise model were "really" the production version, or that the differences represent actual features of the ship, such as retractable spikes on the fronts of the nacelles).

One of things i love about the plans for the TMP refit is that (slight onscreen discrepancies notwithstanding) there was a lot of effort put into making the ship feel like a functional piece of kit.

Putting engineering in the primary hull makes sense given the automated nature of the ship. Presumably auxillary control would be in the secondary hull.

Putting the intermix chamber in the primary hull makes a lot less sense. This would mean the secondary hull would only have thrusters and emergency batteries in the event of a saucer separation. It would have warp engines but no power source. Plus, it's one less safety feature in the event of a containment breach.

Further, if the impulse AND warp core is in the primary hull, why call the secondary hull the engineering section at all? It could be the cargo section, hangar section etc.

Having a back-up dilithium chamber in the engineering section would make sense though. How many times was the ship almost screwed by dodgy crystals with no back-up?

One of things i love about the plans for the TMP refit is that (slight onscreen discrepancies notwithstanding) there was a lot of effort put into making the ship feel like a functional piece of kit.

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I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. The TOS Enterprise, to me, looked solid and (above all) practical. The movie version was the first step on a long path of "designy" ships. Ships whose configurations seemed inspired more by "cool" than common sense.

Oh I dunno, I can see a lot of common sense in the refit design. I do prefer the clinical TMP colouration to TOS colour scheme to help sell colour TVs and the darker TWoK submarine look.

But from a practical perspective, the TMP version thought about cargo transporters, equipment transporters for the bridge (which plays into my personal head canon that transporters should not be able to beam anything and anyone to and from any place, especially not in close proximity to a warp field, without a receiving pad). They thought of thruster placement, landing struts, emergency batteries that should not run out in a matter of hours, escape pods, and docking ports. There was a lot to love there for a 9 year old.

Admittedly a lot of TOS silliness is inspired by plot contrivance, like one drunken lieutenant on the graveyard shift being able to re-route all the systems from main engineering without anybody on the graveyard shift in main engineering noticing. I mean it makes sense that it should be straighforward to re-route systems in an emergency. It doesn't make sense that a lieutenant would be able to block the override codes (or even the pre-fix code) of the senior staff.

I still give it a pass as it's a cracking episode and we all love Riley's beautiful singing voice.

One of the things I loved about the NCC-1701 (and to a degree, the NCC-1701-D) is that it was CLEAN. Clean lines, no small parts jutting out or breaking what I saw as a visual smoothness, and what I would want to see if I wanted a neat and orderly design. The Jupiter 2 had this as well, as did the Phantom Cruiser*. I know that practically, it wouldn't much matter in vacuum as there's no wind drag, or even necessarily directional travel. I suppose that technically, the Enterprise could have traveled with the "top" being the forward face... but there is an aesthetic design to consider.

The first alternative to this that I remember seeing was Space 1999, where those ships were just... well... clunky looking. Again, on Luna, there's nothing to address with wind resistance. But they LOOKED sloppy to me. Also, mathematically speaking, it takes less material to do smooth than to do complex.

*Yes, I know that "Space Ghost" was a cartoon. Doesn't change the design principles, does it? It CAN be done... doesn't mean it SHOULD be done. The redesigned Phantom Cruiser in "Space Stars" in the late 70s was a perfect example of what I thought was a bad design.

The first alternative to this that I remember seeing was Space 1999, where those ships were just... well... clunky looking. Again, on Luna, there's nothing to address with wind resistance. But they LOOKED sloppy to me. Also, mathematically speaking, it takes less material to do smooth than to do complex.

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I think you're missing the point of those designs. The Eagles and other Alpha Base ships were "skinned", having no outer plating to make them "smooth". And, you're right, this was because aerodynamics are not a consideration in vacuum. In this case, the ships were not meant to be pretty, they were meant to be functional.

To say the Enterprise design is iconic is a massive understatement. I loved the fact that it wasn't aerodynamic and wept into my hands several times during Star Trek 2009 and Star Trek into Darkness at the sheer stupidity of ruining that whole concept with the throwaway, "Gee, wouldn't it be cool if..." That crossed the line between Star Wars fictional technology and Star Trek fictional technology for me.

I love it when a model gives the illusion of being functional even if the reality is that a bunch of engineers could tell you why it's really badly designed.

I also love fictional technology as much for its limitations to aid storytelling as anything else, as long as it's reasonably consistently used. The concept of the navigational deflectors is great, so why did they forget to fit a deflector dish to the Reliant? Now they've ruined it.

That crossed the line between Star Wars fictional technology and Star Trek fictional technology for me.

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For me, it breaks down like this:

STAR TREK technology: Fantasy/future technology based at least in part on real and/or theoretical science. The Enterprise is a character, and the foundational element of the show. Clean, simple, functional. Lots of room for fans/writers/artists to expand upon because the basic design theory is well-thought-out, and helps bolster the fantasy of STAR TREK's future as a potential reality.

STAR WARS technology: Fantasy technology based on storytelling convenience. The technology is secondary to the characters, and works in service of the story. The tech looks cool and does cool stuff because it's cool! Getting into the pseudoscience of how hyperdrives and lightsabers work misses the point.

STAR TREK technology is vital to the believability of the show. STAR WARS technology is exciting window dressing.

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